Aerospace Diary

Aviation Week Daily Aug 30, 2010 By Neelam Mathews Air Works India Engineering Pvt. Ltd. signed an agreement with Denmark’s Scandinavian Avionics to create a joint venture avionics MRO company, SA Air Works India. The new entity will provide “turnkey” avionics solutions covering inflight entertainment systems and communications, safety applications, weather systems and other airborne electronics, the partners said. SA Air Works India will be base in Gurgaon, New Delhi, and has EASA Part 145 certification, and Part 147 and 21 support from Scandinavian Avionics. With a strong network of OEM relationships, Air Works is an Authorized Service Center for Rockwell Collins and Honeywell. “We can start to look at positioning ourselves for warranty repairs. ... We can add further value as line-replaceable units (LRU) [are] the core of any aircraft ... we can start looking at repairing them in India,” Ravi Menon, executive director of Air Works, told AVIATION WEEK. SA Air Works initia...

News AWIN First Aug 30 , 2010 Neelam Mathews NEW DELHI Mumbai-based GoAir says Air India’s plans to reduce fares in September when the tourist season starts is counterproductive. “We don’t see (need) for Air India to reduce prices. We hope they realize this is not the right move. We will also have to pull down fares ... everybody will bleed ... unfortunate,” said GoAir CEO Kaushik Khona. The budget airline has eight Airbus A320s and plans to add two more by October. GoAir’s load factors were down in July and August, which are low peak months, said Khona. Air India is expected to reduce fares by about 10%, which many say might lead to a fare-war in a debt-laden industry that had just begun to pick up yields. However, Air India has been historically competitive in its fares. “It is a smart move [by Air India] to garner market share in the leisure market. Indians traditionally book holidays in advance for the last quarter of the year and Air India is tapping that market,” says ...

Aerospace Daily PROGRAMS BENGALURU, INDIA — Next year,Russian space agency Roscomos plans to test the lander that will be part of India’s second Moon mission, Chandrayaan-2,Roscosmos Deputy Head Anatoly Shilov says. Scheduled to be lofted in 2013, Chandrayaan-2 will have an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It is slated to fly on a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle from Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island. While the lander will be provided by Russia, the orbiter and the rover are being built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The rover will move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, perform a chemical analysis and send the data to the spacecraft orbiting above. The rover will weigh 30-100 kg. (70-220 lb.), depending on whether it is to do a semi-hard landing or soft landing. During its planned one month of surface operations, it will run predominantly on solar power. Initially two lunar rovers were planned — one f...

Funding and Policy Aerospace Daily & Defense Report Aug 27 , 2010 , p. 11 Neelam Mathews BENGALURU, India — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is calling upon industry to participate aggressively in its future programs at the three-day Bengaluru Space Expo 2010. Ninety percent of launch vehicle systems have been built by industry, including materials, fabrication and assembly, says T.K. Alex, director of the ISRO Satellite Center. “We [now] need to build industry to the level of engineering systems to subsystems-level integration,” Alex says. On commercialization, K. Radhakrishnan, ISRO chairman, says the industry should look at high technology sectors, in line with ISRO’s growing demand for the latest know-how. “The industry will have to become a risk-bearing partner.” Over 500 companies from small, medium and large sectors receive outsourced work from ISRO. Investment in research and development needs a boost and collaboration with public funded research i...

Aerospace Daily & Defense Report Aug 27, 2010 BUSINESS BENGALURU, INDIA - In a new agreement with Hyderabad-based HBL Power Systems, Russian Navigation Information Systems (NIS) Glonass will market, manufacture and jointly propose products in India that draw upon the Russian satellite navigation system. HBL is a major player in India for batteries and standby power offerings in the railway, defense and telecom domains. It will mainly promote the product — Intelligent Transport System (ITS) — for police and rail systems. ITS helps in automated road traffic control, optimization of routes and emergency response. The deal will “build business opportunities in India for receivers and software for ITS,” Chairman Aluru Jagadish Prasad tells AVIATION WEEK. “We believe Glonass will offer better features that will be superior to the GPS. The system will operate on GPS and Glonass.” Integration of different satellite navigation systems helps prevent the reliance on just one system...

FUNDING & POLICY August 27, 2010 BENGALURU, INDIA — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is calling upon industry to participate aggressively in its future programs at the three-day Bengaluru Space Expo 2010. Ninety percent of launch vehicle systems have been built by industry, including materials, fabrication and assembly, says T.K. Alex, director of the ISRO Satellite Center. “We [now] need to build industry to the level of engineering systems to subsystems-level integration,” Alex says. On commercialization, K. Radhakrishnan, ISRO chairman,says the industry should look at high technology sectors, in line with ISRO’s growing demand for the latest know-how. “The industry will have to become a risk-bearing partner.” Over 500 companies from small, medium and large sectors receive outsourced work from ISRO. Investment in research and development needs a boost and collaboration with public funded research institutions could be the key, says Vikram Kirloskar of the...

Airports Aviation Daily Aug 24 , 2010 , p. 07 Neelam Mathews The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has asked the government to make changes to the aviation policy that currently waives landing and parking charges for aircraft with less than 80 seats operated by domestic scheduled operators and helicopters of all types. It is time to start charging parking and landing fees for these aircraft, says AAI, as it will give a boost to the development of regional airports it is currently upgrading and constructing. Currently, some private regional airports are losing money including five in Maharashtra set up by the Reliance Group. “This is simply because there is not enough traffic to support them. There are no sources of revenue including retail, [food and beverage] and revenue from hangars. Some charges for landing will need to be enforced to get return on investment for the operators,” says Ansgar Sickert, managing director of Fraport India. “The present policy does not work as ...